Because 2022 was a challenge, multiple challenges actually. I wish I could be this person:

It should be this easy to paint the sun into the sky. 

I finished this sweater after over 1 year of knitting. It was a knit-along with video lessons or I never would have tried it.That was January.

February and March were focused on getting ready to travel to Arizona to see brother Steve and Mary in Green Valley. It was a tremendous trip — three weeks long, with the trailer and the two dogs. Totally fantastic to see landscapes that are red, instead of the Columbia River Basalt I’ve seen all my life.

Zion, Snow Canyon, Canyon de Chelly (with an amazing guide), the Trojan Missile museum, Arco Santi, Tubac with lots of Mexican art, Saguaro National Park and the Desert Museum. Let’s not forget the rock shop in LaVerkin Utah where I found this delicious little intarsia box.The  Mt Hood Rock Club voted it the Silver Pick purchase of the year. 

Steve and Mary  took good care of us — even re-working the front porch so that Frosty and Nikki could have a safe, shady place to hang out. Mary has made so many art touches to the house, yard, and furniture. She is amazing talented. Steve was happy showing us all the improvements he’s done (styrofoam and mortar grilling station outside!) He also has a local woodworking shop where he can play.

Got home and got ready to get the new cyclone fencing installed replacing all the wood fence around my lot. Install started the end of May. 

And June 1, things started to go south in a big way.

June 1 we got the phone call that Ralph and Sally’s son Stuart had taken his own life. It was a huge shock, totally unexpected, and brutally sorrowful. 

In the meantime, Ralph was struggling with outrageous shoulder pain, and lost the use of his right hand by Memorial Day. Unable to sleep for the pain, and not knowing if a fall in the kitchen had started a major injury, Sally and Ralph kept getting him checked out. Finally, just after 4th of July, someone X-rayed his neck and saw a hole in his vertebrae. It was a heroic struggle to find a hospital bed for him as close as Pendleton. I met Sally and Carrie in Pendleton just as Ralph was diagnosed with a fast moving bone cancer. Ralph chose not to treat it, knowing that he would not live very much longer. That was the weekend of July 10th. Ralph died in Hermiston July 15. 

The only thing I could do was go to Pendleton and be with the program, wherever that would lead. Whitehorse Casino has a lovely RV Park. Then to an RV park in Hermiston. I booked three days but Ralph only lasted one. Then back to Heppner to stay at the lake. Every night I would put out snacks, drinks, food, and make room for Sally and Carrie to just hang out. And I listened, a lot. Summer had encountered a major black hole.

Two weeks later, a memorial service for Stu was held at the Western Forestry Center. 

The whole experience reverberates through everything in my life. There are tokens of Ralph and Sally all over my house. All of his rockhounding stash is in our barn. Sally is alone. Carrie is spinning, and Stu’s wife Molly is suffering. 

A potluck was held in Ralph’s honor, and I was thrilled to see Edith and Amelia come in with a mountain of a cheese and cracker tray for the guests. He was their surrogate Dad, too.  

It is amazing to think that I knew Ralph and Sally longer than I knew my own Dad, who died in 1978 aged 57. I swear the grief just piles up. A new event, no matter how small (like a lost set of keys) can bring all the sorrow crashing down, again and again.